Grease fires originating at a cooking stove are well documented as a major cause of serious home fires. Insurance companies can testify to the dangers posed by fires originating from overheating and ignition of grease or oil during cooking. Many solutions have been proposed for extinguishing stove grease fires, but none prior to my above parent patent appears to have demonstrated the necessary effectiveness to put out such a fire and keep it out in the event the burner remains active after the fire has been extinguished. In the panic that usually ensues when a grease fire occurs, turning off the gas or electric burner is frequently overlooked, since greatest focus is on what to do about putting out the fire. Assuming a typical hand-held extinguisher is available and is used to cause the flame to die out, the grease can reignite if the burner is still on and the cooking utensil remains on the burner. If a one-shot extinguisher is mounted on the stove, it is no longer effective, having been spent in the initial flame-up. The most effective method of preventing reignition is to flood the cooking vessel with sufficient fire suppressant powder to cause the oil or grease to cake and solidify, as discussed in my aforementioned patent. That will prevent a second flare-up.
In contrast to extensively-used relatively inexpensive smoke alarms that are fairly simple for an average homeowner to install, stovetop fire extinguishers are believed to be only nominally used at the present time. They are either too complex for the average homeowner to install, are too cumbersome and bulky due to having to use activating cables extending around and above the cooking area, do not adequately fit above the cooking area without inconveniencing the cooking operation, are required to be mounted inside a relatively inaccessible cooking hood or are so costly that they are unaffordable to those persons at the lower end of the economic scale, the very persons who may have greatest need for an extinguisher.